I never rode a bus to school until my last two years and that was because it was about 20 miles away at least. Otherwise it was in the burbs, not urban not rural. Maybe a half mile or 3/4 mile at the longest but I rode a bike when the weather allowed. It was up hill in the morning to school and coming home my bike could coast all the way home once I hit the street. Rather fast too. I did challenge the winter once and wipe out on a patch of ice pretty good.

I walked to elementary school, about a mile or so, took city buses to jr high 2 miles away, and high school 3 miles away, from Detroit's Woodward and 8 Mile. Walking to the elementary was kinda cool, as the school had made some kind of arrangements with the Michigan State Fair authorities to leave the fence gates open at the southeast end of our neighborhood, and at the street the other side of the fair grounds for us to walk through as a shortcut to walking the opposite way over to Woodward and then all the way around the fair grounds. The city bus stops where on Woodward, the one for the ride to school on the other side of Woodward at 8 mile. The ride home terminus was a bus turnaround depot cut into the west side of the fair grounds. This place included a small store and newspaper stand at that time, the late 60's early 70's. This was the street car turnaround until 1956, when the street cars ended. The Streetcar/Bus depot can be seen in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2aSx4wu2SY at about 2:10. The south end of my old neighborhood can be seen in the far background as the street car is leaving the depot for the trip back downtown.

Not *everything* is all rosy for kids these days. I have a child in school, and you bet I buy into FUD. Less than a year ago, in the town I was born and partially raised in, a student brought a gun to school and took his own life, as police had arrived and the school was on lockdown. "Hide and be quiet" drills weren't a thing when I was a kid. We had several bomb threats in our school system last year. I feel pretty lucky that, when I was in school, I didn't have to worry about all that stuff. Call me overprotective or whatever, I do my best know my child is safe. As I type this, there's an active shooter in a California school. Today's youth are given a lot of crap about participation trophies and all that jazz, but they also have some pretty grown-up stuff to have to think about, as well. I pity the kids of today...

Just to note, none of this is intended to be political or mean-spirited; just a justification of why a parent might not let their child walk to school on their own.

We not only had fire drills but also nuclear attack "Duck and cover" drills in the 50's. Heckuva way to scare the crap out of a kid. I still remember diving under the desk when the alarm went off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T8OliPd4jk



Larry

Ah, I got to grow up in the golden age between nuclear threats and active shooter threats. Brandenburg Gate opened when I was in Kindergarten. All we worried about were tornadoes and fires.

Prescient thread perhaps? Just had a mass shooting at a local high school about a half dozen miles from here;
https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-s ... l-shooting

Yep, I remember the "Bend over and kiss your butt goodby " drills. In my view, probably the best Cold War movie made...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKo_GDLO-i0

Its annoying that kids don't learn the lessons of life because motorized vehicles take them everywhere: to the movie theater, the grocery store, to school, or on vacations. Back when I was a young whipper snapper we had lorrisa the family mule or our bare feet as shoes were only used in the winter. Kids these days.... I tell ya...

And just how old are you?

DM

I was making a point...

I was driven almost every day to school: 0.68 miles to elementary,
.95 to junior high, 1.04 to high school.

My parents could simply not conceive of walking more than one block.

Its not that I couldn't, or that other kids didn't ... two girls a
block farther than I walked every day, a couple of kids
half the distance were driven!

However, it would not have been pleasant to walk to junior high or high
without a large backpack for books, and such things apparently did not exist then.
The two girls carried a small briefcase in each hand! I would not want to walk even
0.68 miles twice a day today carrying the load without a backpack.

In the 1950's, my Boy Scout backpack could carry enough supplies to last 3 days; including meals, cooking gear, and a bedroll. We frequently traipsed many miles over farm terrain to campgrounds. These are not modern inventions . . . Your parents probably had the best intentions, but . . . . . . I shan't go on.

Dan

Things weren't all that safe in the '50's, as there were still a few Dinosaurs running around here and there. On my way to junior high school in '57, I encountered a baby Raptor, and beat it to death with my loose leaf notebook.

At least it shows that they're interested in their kids going to school

Somewhat OT but my grandson, 9 years old in Australia has to be "delivered" to school every day and picked up every day. Because, Australia does not have school buses. Gosh, what a cluster thing that is two times a day. Oh, the schools do not have ANY parking for parents. Only have enough for the teachers and admonishment not to park there. The neighborhoods bear the load and traffic... two times a day.

So, unless you live within a few blocks, you have to drive them.

I grew up in the sticks in east Tennessee and our bus route went all over the place. Some of the kids that we picked up lived on one lane roads and I was always amazed that the bus driver was able to maneuver the bus in some of these places.

My best memory is that on one of these little narrow roads there was a bridge that had a very sharp and abrupt dip off the other side. we found that if you went to the very back of the bus and waited until the driver went over this drop-off that the back end of the bus would bounce and launch s in the air if you jumped at the right moment. In fact we would encourage the bus driver to drive a bit faster over this to enhance it a bit and if you were good enough you could just about hit your head on the ceiling. Good times.

We would get a "student bus pass"... a reduced price ticket good for 10 trips. Half the time it was quicker to walk the 2 miles than use the stupid bus!!! The downside of having to be at the bus stop so early was a detraction, too... and, you still got soaked in foul weather waiting... today the stupid buses seem to stop at EACH house... how dumb is that??? By the time I was in high school, I just walked no matter what the weather was.. and heaven forbid, if you would use rubbers or an umbrella, you were guaranteed to be crucified by the other students. My Mother always said she walked a mile to school... she stopped that whine when I clocked my walk at 2.1 miles....
I get the fact that there are losers out there, but once you hit teenage years you need to learn to fend for yourself... sink or swim!!!

Jim

When I was a kid, the bus dropped us off at the end of our driveway...which happened to be about 1/2 mile. Luckily, when I got older (but before I got my license), my folks had a not-fit-for-road-driving-but-still-drivable Mercury Zephyr that I could park towards the end of the drive. It went from a 1/2 mile walk to about 200ft. Made it really nice on rainy/super-cold days. Then, in the morning, I'd drive it back down so it was ready again. Felt pretty cool...

Growing up, our driveway was a mere 750 feet. It was in a hollow between two fields. If we had 6 inches of snow overnight, and there was even a modest breeze, it was close to 3 feet in the driveway. The fields were hard to walk in, since the cover crops were plowed under in late fall. Dad usually fired up the tractor and had the drive plowed by 8 a.m., but the bus came an hour earlier. We just took it in stride, no big deal. I suppose my parents would be facing child abuse charges today . . . SMH.

Dan

Ok, so when this year's school season started, I pulled out of my drive way and proceed to drive to work. I made the left turn and then stopped behind the vehicle that was stopped at a stop sign. So I'm sitting there waiting for him to make a turn onto the main road until finally, I realized that he was sitting with his son waiting for the bus! Geeze Louise! Do you think he could actually pull off to the right side of the road and wait? Every morning he's there. I have to drive around him in the other lane and hope no one on the main road is going to make a turn and hit me head on! What the hell's wrong with people?